Press Ownership and Monopoly

Press Ownership and Monopoly

The Indian Press has been a private commercial enterprise form the days of its pioneers, Buckingham and Hicky. The trend towards individual ownership and later concentration of ownership was already discernible in Pre-Independent India. Today, individuals own the largest number of newspapers with a circulation of more than a third of the total circulation. Joint stock companies, many of them industrial and commercial ventures,  constitute another third of the share of circulation. It is to be noted that Government publications are few in comparison. and have a mere two per cent of the circulation. Most of these Government publications would be by Government department at the Center or in the States. Finally, there is small number of newspaper brought out by cooperatives, religious and political group, or by journalists themselves.

Concentration of owner ship or monopolies in the sphere of newspaper and magazine publishing takes the from of industrial houses bringing out multiple- audience publication such as morning  and evening papers and dailies for the general reader, specialist dailies for businessmen and professionals, as well as women’s magazines, children’s periodicals, business weeklies, science, in house  journals and even comics. The Times of India group is the largest public house bringing out regularly all these types of publications, but the group cannot be said to have a monopoly.

The Indian Express group, its closest; competitor, is owned by the Goenka industrial house, and publishes its daily from more than 15 major cities, and boasts the largest circulation. Goenka may be a ‘Press Baron’ like Sahu Jain, he does not have a sole monopoly. The Anand Bazaar Group, and the Hindustan Times Group(owned by the Birlas ) are other contenders. In Kerala, the Malayalam Manorama group rules the roost.

Ownership of newspapers is thus concentrated in the hands of these few group which as a result wields much power. The concentration of ownership is a major threat to a free Press, for it considerably narrows the range of opinion and the field of debate.

 Ownership Pattern of Newspapers 

	Form of ownership	No. of newspapers	Percentage
1	Individuals	20,112	70.6
2	Societies / associations	3,944	13.8
3	Firms / partnership	1,282	4.5
4	Joint Stock Companies	1,255	4.4
5	Government (Central / State)	681	2.4
6.	Others	1,217	4.3
	TOTAL	28,491	100.0

Circulation of Newspapers Under Different forms of Ownership

	Form of ownership	Number	Circulation  (in thousands )	%
1 2 3 4 5 6 7	Individuals JointStock Companies Firms / Partnership Societies / associations Trust Government Others	2,669 418 247 327 120 32 77	22,493 19,627 5,598 1,986 2,624 376 670	42.3 36.9 10.5 3.7 5.0 0.8 0.8

See Also :

Print Media and Communication	Freedom of Press - The right to Publish and Privacy
Communication and Print media	Council Guides to Journalistic Ethics
Introduction to Print Media	Censorship in the Press and Media
Developments in Print Media	Media Laws
Contribution of News Papers	Press Ownership and Monopoly
Contribution of Magazines	Media Organisations and News Agencies
Press Commissions and Councils	The Mass Media
The Power of Press	Functions of Mass Media
History of Indian Journalism	Theories of the Press or Media
Press Censorship under the Emergency	Code of Ethics for Journalists
News Values in Journalism	Readership and Popularity of Magazine
Magazine genres-Types of Magazine